Tag: Brandeis Graduate Professional Studies
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October is National Cyber Awareness Month, and we’ll be spotlighting cybersecurity content on the blog all month long.

People management is one of the hardest and most rewarding experiences of one’s working life. With the advent of the “gig” economy, I am curious how we are faring in hiring in the cybersecurity space.

Cybersecurity hiring has been universally difficult for some time. It’s not that there is a lack of quality candidates. The issue is that we are missing each other. This is due in large part to the “traditional” hiring approach that many mangers adopt when they have open roles. They head to HR, or pick up the phone and call HR, and ask HR to find them candidates.

This happened to an acquaintance of mine not too long ago. He was looking for a junior information security analyst: a basic role that requires entry-level experience. He received more than 600 resumes, and realized that solid candidates were getting lost in a sea of unqualified applicants who know security is hot and want in.

If you are a manager in security, it’s time to change your hiring paradigm. To find a better applicant pool, cast your net more efficiently and do the following immediately:

Use your network. Get into your network and spend some time talking to your peers. Learn how to recruit and get out and start recruiting. If you have people in your network that would be perfect, call them. If they do not want to move, find out if they have contacts looking for work. Ask your peers where they are finding hires. Share information on candidates, someone who is not a good team fit for you may be a good team fit for a peer of yours.

Set the expectation up front in postings that you are different and you are serious. Include information in job postings that candidates will be tested on role skills during the first interview. Those without skills and basic security knowledge immediately fall out. This works well for junior roles. For more senior roles, make it known up front that for technicians they will need to demonstrate skills and for managers, they will need to discuss culture, training and retention.

Make candidates provide a cover letter or cover email that explains how their experience aligns to the role, or provide them a platform to do this in a structured way. This will, once again, weed out those who do not align with the expectations of the role. If I need to describe in a table how my experience and skills relate directly to the role skills, I know that the manager is serious and is looking for the right candidate, and not just “looking” for candidates. Demand that candidates communicate, and get them together to be interviewed by other managers, from other non-IT departments, to interview them more objectively.

Look for skills and education that shows the candidate is more than a CISSP. CISSP’s are everywhere, but show me a CISSP with a master’s degree who can write a business case or executive memo and I’ll scoop them up.

Once you build a team, you need to cultivate it. You want to develop your employees, and yes, eventually you want them to move on, to be successful in another department or another company. However, at the outset, for all your hires, you want to retain them, develop them and let them thrive. This will also pay when you need to hire. Some of those employees will develop into their next role with you, and if you know those employees and what they want and where they want their career to go, you can help. Do a better job of knowing your current employees and how you can develop them for that next role. Look at your team for diversity, and for diversity of thought, and make sure you employ some contrarians. Diversity in thought is especially important in cybersecurity. A diverse team will be a high performing team. For roles where you have great staff but they are taking leave or need a different structure to their job, consider altering your approach and preconceptions about the traditional working day or the traditional working role rather than replacing those employees.

There are candidates for roles, but they need to be discovered. If you’re looking for a position, differentiate yourself from the masses. Why do I want to hire you? Stop memorizing port numbers and show me you know what P&L is and that you understand budgeting, or, develop your presentation skills, or, develop data analysis or data visualization skills. Or, better yet, get a master’s in security leadership and I’ll know you can handle the role.

Joseph (Joe) Dalessandro is the program chair of the Information Security Leadership program at Brandeis University Graduate Professional Studies, and the Head of Security & Technology Audit and Audit Data Analytics, Australian Unity.

There is a common misconception that online learning cannot be as interactive as in-classroom learning. With today’s instructional design technology however, this is simply no longer the case.

The Distance Education Enrollment Report 2017, produced by Digital Learning Compass, in partnership with OLC, Pearson and Tyton Partners, indicates that online participation in graduate-level coursework is on the rise. The report found that the number of total students taking at least one online course increased by 11 percent between 2012 and 2015.

To meet this demand, graduate programs are responding by developing tools and technologies to keep their online classrooms interactive.

All Brandeis GPS programs are fully online and asynchronous, allowing a lot of flexibility for students throughout each week. Instructors use a number of digital tools to enhance their students online learning experience. These are some of the new tools that Brandeis GPS is using this year:

Mahara ePortfolio

This fall, Brandeis GPS is adopting Mahara as it’s new ePortfolio tool. ePortfolios allow students to compile and preserve their submitted assignments from course-to-course and create a web-based collection of their work products and program accomplishments. The inclusion of ePortfolio assignments within GPS courses will allow students to learn more deeply through self-reflection and to illustrate the skills they acquire through their participation in the program to current and prospective employers.

VoiceThread allows instructors and students to engage in voice and video based asynchronous discussions. Users can post discussion responses that include webcam video, images, audio, and text uploaded from their browser or mobile devices and can reply to classmates’ or instructors’ posts with voice, video, image-based, and/or text responses. VoiceThread creates an opportunity for students to engage in rich audio-visual discussions and group activities, and allows instructors to provide voice and video based feedback on students posts and assignments in an asynchronous setting.

Meet Kevan Kivlan, MS, who serves as a Director for the US General Services Administration in New England. Kevan is responsible for the overall regional stakeholder program management where he oversees a team who provides program, project and acquisition advice to federal, state and local governments. In 2010, Kevan received an M.S. in Project and Program Management from Brandeis University after completing his undergraduate studies at Assumption College in Worcester, MA in 2002.

Members of the Brandeis GPS Community may submit job postings from within their industries to advertise exclusively to our community. This is a great way to further connect and seek out opportunities as they come up. If you are interested in posting an opportunity, please complete the following form found here.

Where: Stakd (remote position, but office space is available in Hoboken, NJ and Boston, MA)

Robotics technology has proven to evolve at a rapid pace. In 2015, Uber began testing the first of its self-driving cars, and in 2016 it launched 16 self-driving SUVs in San Francisco. With the innovations of today providing just a small glimpse into future advancements, the robotics industry eagerly has its sight set on 2018. As we roll into the new year, we’ve got our eye on five particular trends that we think could characterize the next robotics wave.

Members of the Brandeis GPS Community may submit job postings from within their industries to advertise exclusively to our community. This is a great way to further connect and seek out opportunities as they come up. If you are interested in posting an opportunity, please complete the following form found here.

After starting his master’s as an undergraduate, a Brandeis University alumnus proves that full-time work and graduate school can co-exist.

Three days after graduating from Brandeis University with a BS in Health: Science, Society, and Policy (HSSP) and a minor in Economics, Allan Chuang (class of 2017) enrolled in the university’s Health and Medical Informatics (HMI) program — a master’s of science degree offered through the university’s division of Graduate Professional Studies. Brandeis GPS caught up with Allan to learn more about his new life as a part-time graduate student and what motivated him to continue his Brandeis education.

The first time Allan Chuang learned of Brandeis GPS was through an email sent by the university’s registrar during the first or second week of his senior year. After reading that graduating seniors could enroll in GPS’s online graduate courses, he began researching programs and discovered that the HMI program and Brandeis GPS offered courses that would expand his current access to health policy education.

“I found that HMI is very similar to HSSP and since GPS was offering the program’s intro course, I just decided to give it a shot,” said Chuang.

This past spring, Chuang enrolled in Perspectives on Health/Medical Information Systems. Despite taking four other courses during this last undergraduate semester, he found the workload manageable and enjoyed the flexibility of online learning. In addition to setting aside blocks of study time and finding new coffee shops to work from, he also stressed how discipline and self-motivation were critical to his academic success.

“Taking a GPS course is like going to the gym,” said Chuang. If you go to the gym every day with a routine schedule, you get in the habit of putting in your work.”

After graduating from Brandeis last May, Chuang accepted a position at a travel tech start-up in Taiwan. Despite working 50-60 hours each week, Chuang enrolled in a second GPS course and recently applied and was accepted into the Health and Medical Informatics program.

“People in my classes aren’t just students, they are also very experienced healthcare professionals — some have been in the industry for more than 15-20 years,” said Chuang. “We have very vibrant discussions. It’s a good opportunity to network and get to know people in the healthcare fields.”

Those vibrant discussions are at the heart of each GPS course. Chuang looks forward to the weekly feedback he receives from his instructor, which challenges him to engage even more deeply in peer-to-peer dialogue.

Chuang decided to continue his education at Brandeis GPS because of the university’s dedication to academic excellence and high reputation in the greater Boston area. The fact that students have up to five years to complete their degree, and that Brandeis GPS gives Brandeis alumni a 15% tuition discount on online classes, also motivated him to enroll.

Faces of GPS is an occasional series that profiles Brandeis University Graduate Professional Studies students, faculty and staff. Find more Faces of GPS stories here.

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